I enclose a telegram from
Tambov.[1] Please arrange
another general meeting of these 252 (it is not clear whether
they are all the members of the co-operative or only some
of them, and if so, out of what total number) and explain
the following to them:

“The Council of People’s Commissars has passed a decree
for the organisation of consumers’ communes in the
interests of correct distribution of products. It is unjust that
the distribution of products essential for the whole
population should be handled only by part of the population,
as was the case under capitalism. In all countries the
cooperatives under capitalism embrace mainly the upper
sections of workers and peasants. It is essential that now not
only the upper sections, but all working people, every one
of them, should take part in the distribution of products.

“There is hardly a single one of the great founders of
the world co-operative movement who has not pointed to
the conversion of this movement into socialism. Now
indeed this time has come, and all the best elements in the
co-operatives are in sympathy with the development of the
co-operative movement as envisaged in the decree on the
conversion of the co-operatives into consumers’ communes
embracing all the working people without exception.

“The members of the consumers’ communes retain the right
of fully independent control, as also the right to conduct
affairs independently. This is why I am asking the
meeting to revise its decision, to recognise the binding
nature of the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars
and not to make the workers’ and peasants’ government have
recourse to undesirable measures of compulsion.

Notes

[1]This refers to a telegram from the Tambov Consumers’ Society
to the Council of People’s Commissars concerning
implementation of the decree of the C.P.C., dated March 16, 1919, on
consumers’ communes. The decree provided for the amalgamation
of all consumers’ co-operatives in town and country into
consumers’ communes with the aim of creating a single distributive
apparatus. The telegram from Tambov reported that 252 members
of the Tambov Consumers’ Society found at their meeting that
trade was being conducted properly and “do not want to hand
over the Consumers’ Society to consumers’ communes”.